Tata Steel Foundation commits to strengthen public health facilities in Simdega, will increase bed capacity

Jamshedpur: The district administration of Simdega and Tata Steel Foundation signed a Memorandum of Understanding today, to provide advanced medical equipment and increase the capacity of government healthcare centres in the district.

This is part of the five-year MoU signed between Simdega district administration and Tata Steel Foundation for enhancing healthcare services by strengthening healthcare institutions.

This includes a comprehensive plan to support the district with critical medical equipment, renovation of existing health infrastructure and building capacities of functionaries of Department of Health in the district.

The healthcare upgradation will include government healthcare centres in remote areas where significant gaps exist in healthcare facilities. After undertaking several large-scale public health interventions during COVID19 pandemic which included setting up free COVID Care Hospitals for the community, setting up oxygen plants for government hospitals and COVID vaccination of more than 2.5 lakh people in Jharkhand, Tata Steel Foundation will now be providing several life-saving medical equipment to Simdega district administration to benefit the citizens.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr Sourav Roy, Chief Executive Officer, Tata Steel Foundation, said: “Our learning from the COVID experience has been to look at creating systemic changes and addressing infrastructure gaps for communities in Jharkhand which currently have the least access to advanced medical care.

We are committed to addressing the needs of the Simdega district and are hopeful that patients and the community at large will now receive enhanced medical care close to their places of stay.”

Advanced medical equipment and hospital furniture worth almost 1.5 Crores is being immediately provided to the district. This includes 50 advanced ICU bed sets and several critical and life-saving medical equipment such as HFNO (High Flow Nasal Oxygen) equipment, NIV (Non-Invasive Ventilators), 15 ECG machines, 20 ICU Monitors, Defibrillators, 50 Oxygen regulators, Syringe Pumps, 50 cardiac trolleys, 50 saline stands and several other critical medical equipment.

With the view to improve overall patient care, wheelchairs, hydraulic patient trolleys, refrigerators, several almirahs and other ancillary hospital items are also being provided to the district to upgrade healthcare centres in the district. The supply of these critical equipment will directly increase the bed capacity in the district and contribute to better access to high quality treatment for all citizens of the district.

Tata Steel Foundation is already working extensively in several parts of Jharkhand in the field of Maternal and Child Health through its flagship program, MANSI+, which works with Sahiyyas and ANMs at grassroots level to ensure health and nutrition of mothers, newborn children and adolescents across the State. It has also taken up capacity building of Anganwadi workers and frontline health workers to provide better nutrition and health services in several parts of Jharkhand.